Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Walking the Day After the Combine Experience

Well, I survived yesterday. My left arm and hand are a bit sore. Tall Guy said that would happen because you steer with your left hand while your right hand is on the .......uhm......thingy that makes the whole enchilada go forward. I want to give a big thanks to MARKET DAY in helping me get supper on the table. It was actually a good meal with wild rice, garlic shrimp, and broccoli. The girls opted for chicken nuggets and fish sticks. Market Day is a place where we can order food with some of the $$ going to our school. Gotta help the school right????

Now don't anyone get all crazy on me. Yes, I let both girls eat different things, BUT since I baked the fish sticks in the oven, why not put some chicken nuggets on half the sheet???? The rice,shrimp,broccoli dish wasn't ready when they needed to eat, but they would have eaten at least the broccoli......You know some days it's all about "I'm fixing ONE meal and you will sit there until you eat it all!," but then there are days when I would just like to eat a meal in peace and have everyone happy with what is in front of them.

Today we are switching to soybeans, and that appears to be more tricky to cut (BTW: We PICK corn, and we CUT beans! Who knew?) For you all who have been off the farm for a while, the corn head spreads out like fingers, and ours picks 8 rows at a time. The bean head is kind of like a huge 30 ft. round, basket-like rake that pulls the beans in. I know I should have pictures, but both are about 5 miles away. You can click here to see a 12 row corn head (ours is a bit smaller and only picks 8 rows, and you can click here to watch 35 ft. bean head in action (again, our bean head is 30 feet). In the last video, you will also see the combine loading on to another tractor pulling an auger wagon. That is what we call unloading on the go. Also a tricky feat I have not yet attempted. Apparently I made Tall Guy nervous yesterday when I turned a little too close to our auger wagon. He got on the radio and politely informed me those were $1000 tires I had the snout of the corn head too close to. Geez! I was going to back up anyway. Silly man!

Dang! Great minds think alike! Head over to my friend Lauren's blog for an even better video of what we do! She and her husband and kiddos are just a few miles south of us (must be why our brains are syncing up!). Oh! Please remove any hats if you are wearing them in honor of the second most revered song around these parts ;-)

I guess my job today in more back to the mundane things like finishing laundry, making phone calls, paying bills and balancing the check book, and "stuff." like that. Oh yea! And getting caught up with all the good bloggy news I missed yesterday ;-)

7 comments:

P.S. I did get a call to come drive the tractor with the auger wagon out to help him empty his load without having to drive the combine all the way back to the trucks! Woo! I grabbed EAT,PRAY,LOVE to read on the down times, and there were a couple!

I am so amazed by today's farm equipment. When I was a kid, every farmer in the area had his own tractor or two, haybine, corn picker, chopper, etc. Now there are people who do custom work and these machines are HUGE - like your bean machine. When they take the alfalfa off our fields, the machine takes a huge swath and they're done in a matter of minutes...well, maybe an hour. But it's so fast...and so expensive to own and operate the machinery, huh.

Good for you, Lana.... I'm so proud of you... As you say, Dang---you are good at driving those big ole doo-dads...

I know what you mean about having peace at the dinner table on occasion. One time I made my youngest son sit at the table for hours ---until he ate FIVE green peas.... He was gagging like I had killed him... Sometimes it is not worth it!